5 out of 5 stars

If you’ve attended a loved one’s deathbed, you’ll know the feeling of helplessness that comes with the task. Time is but a concept, both stretching endlessly and standing still, as conflicting feelings surface. It’s a time that brings family together, for better or worse. In fraught family dynamics, death may be one of the biggest disruptors. In His Three Daughters, it brings together three estranged sisters to their father’s deathbed…

Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) still lives in the apartment with their father, Vincent (Jay O. Sanders); Katie (Carrie Coon) resides in Brooklyn but visits infrequently; and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), lives halfway across the country. The latter two move in temporarily to be with their dad during his final days. Vincent is dying from an unspecified cancer, which he’s been battling for a while, and is at home in hospice care. The sisters struggle to adapt to living all together again, and grievances both old and new quickly pile up and surface.

The siblings, who live seemingly separate lives, don’t get along; they might as well be speaking different languages. Rachel, who’s been taking care of their dad this whole time, is perceived by the others to be a low-life slacker, getting high and betting on sports all day. She can’t seem to do anything right with anyone and ping-pongs between Katie scolding her for smoking weed inside and the building’s superintendent Victor (Jose Febus) berating her for smoking outside and pleading with her to bring it inside.

Katie herself is a rigid type-A mom of three who needs to constantly be in action. She’s high maintenance in all aspects and completely closed off emotionally. And Christina is a young mom besotted with her daughter who oozes toxic positivity. She often steps into the role of peacemaker between her sisters and tries to smooth tensions down, but she harbours her own insecurities and grievances. Vincent is absent for most of the film, with a brief appearance at the very end. I found it fitting, as grief is about who’s left behind; the sisters’ drawn-out vigil, in wait for the inevitable, is what the film is trying to capture.

His Three Daughters is a dialogue-driven drama where the only action you will see is a couple of spirited sisterly fights. It opens with a high-strung Katie talking at Rachel, monologuing and sending countless little jabs at her sister. The dialogue’s sharp and intentional, and while it starts out feeling a bit theatrical it soon eases to feel more lived-in and natural. It doesn’t over-explain or drown audiences in exposition but rather gives us a window into the characters’ inner lives and sets up their relationships. Through conversations and confrontations, in moments like writing an obituary and discussing what connects them after their father’s imminent passing, the sisters’ history is teased and laid out for audiences.

While first presented as three opposite archetypes, the sisters end up being delightfully multi-faceted characters brought to life through exquisite, nuanced performances. Interestingly, writer-director Azazel Jacobs wrote the screenplay with these three actresses in mind.

Lyonne, best known for her comedic chops, quietly shines as Rachel; with her sisters, she’s subdued and almost submissive, whereas with her friends or in the outside world she’s vibrant and witty. In the only sequence that takes place outside of the apartment or the building’s courtyard, we see her interacting with a neighbour’s dog and bantering with the dispensary employee where she buys her weed. The other two sisters’ link to the outside world is shown through phone calls with their loved ones. The soft-spoken and anxious Christina is brought to life by Olsen and her wide, expressive blue eyes which let the audience glance at the turmoil under the appearance of calm. Coon’s Katie is passive-aggressive, and her controlling demeanour barely covers the vulnerable, raw emotions that are bubbling inside of her.

The few other characters who join them are there to reflect the sisters’ personalities and struggles. Rachel’s friend Benjy (Jovan Adepo) is her voice, the one who finally stands up to Katie when Rachel won’t. The fatalistic hospice care worker Angel (Rudy Galvan) is a means to an end, to build more tension by repeating his spiel that every new day could be the last, aggravating the sisters. The nurse (Jasmine Bracey) attending to their dad is a bland character; she’s well-meaning but has a job to do. She is the perfect canvas onto whom Katie can finally open up and let go of her façade. Finally, Victor is an outsider who wants to support Rachel but has a job to do and is the rock to Katie’s hard place.

His Three Daughters was shot on film, which gives the images a distinct quality unique to film. The cinematography is warm throughout, using lots of natural light or smaller secondary light sources like table lamps, which gives a cosy vibe to the apartment. The only exception is the inside of Rachel’s room, often lit by the TV’s blue light, as she isolates herself from the rest of the apartment in her room. The change of warmth shows how, even if it’s her safe place, it’s not a comfortable one. The camera, as the audience, is an observer; Jacobs rarely frames the sisters together and favours long shots. There are no real scene changes, and every scene flows directly into the other, which gives an illusion of time standing still. As mentioned, the film takes place almost exclusively in the apartment, which also contributes to its theatrical feel. It feels like a real place: imperfect and messy, unfashionable. The space, as the characters, are lived-in and familiar.

The visual isn’t the only aspect of the film where attention to detail is important. His Three Daughters features oppressive sound editing: the machine’s heartbeat beeps coming from Vincent’s room are omnipresent. The sisters listen for it constantly, and the viewer starts to listen for it too. Anxiety sets in as soon as it seems to quiet down. While life goes on outside in the frenetic energy of the Big Apple, another is ending inside the apartment.

The sisters reflect on death, as their wake seems to stretch. In a sequence that feels like the pivot point of the entire film, Christina recalls something Vincent told her while they were watching an old movie depicting death: “He wanted to explain to me that the death we were watching in the film had no relationship to how it was in life, that books, and movies, and everything that tried to show death got it wrong. That the act itself of putting into images, into words, is where it all went wrong. It was a big lie. The only way to sum up a person’s life, the only way to put things into perspective, what they did, who they were, how they loved, and were… The only way to communicate how death truly feels is through absence. Everything else is fantasy.”

Talking about the film in an interview with Letterbox, Carrie Coon said: “It’s impossible to capture the real experience in art because it’s often smaller than what we want it to be. We spend a lot of time talking about the deathbed conversation, but the deathbed conversation rarely happens, let alone in a satisfying way.”

His Three Daughters doesn’t make a show of death but focuses on who’s left behind: a dysfunctional trio of sisters, living and mourning in very different ways.

USA | 2024 | 101 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

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Cast & Crew

writer & director: Azazel Jacobs.
starring: Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Rudy Galvan, Jose Febus, Jasmine Bracey, Jay O. Sanders & Jovan Adepo.